May 14, 2011
Posted in Festivals
at 5:11 am
by Shefyt
Last weekend, for the Beautiful Feast of the Valley, a friend and I went to the Willowbrook Arboreteum’s lilac grove, where we left an offering of cinnamon-almond cookies and cool water for the Akhu, our beloved dead. It was a sublimely gorgeous day of bright sun, cool shade, and everywhere the flowers of May in bloom: dogwood, evening primrose, spring beauty, Virginia bluebells, tulips, the very first opening blooms on the cascades of wisteria, and many more, all lifting our hearts in quiet joy.
It’s been a difficult couple of months, but I feel as though things are finally getting back on track for me again. So I give thanks to the Akhu, who have been here before, and to the beautiful Gods, who watch over us always. And thank you to all who have been following along, for your patience, for your presence, for your good thoughts and prayers.
Sweetness of lilacs for you, O my Akhu, and sweetness for the Gods, and may there be sweetness for all those I love.
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October 5, 2010
Posted in Creative Fire, Thoughts and Reflections
at 8:28 pm
by Shefyt
I’ve been working on a new song for Bast, which involves a lengthy process of singing the tune over and over and over while trying to come up with the words. Last night, as I was getting changed at the gym, one of the other women in the locker room commented to me, “You must be having a good day.” I gave her a blank look, and she added, “You’re singing.”
Embarrassed, I apologized — I had thought I was singing inaudibly under my breath — but she shook her head. “No,” she said, “it’s good to see somebody being happy. My mother always used to say that you couldn’t be unhappy if you were singing.”
And maybe that’s not strictly true — it’s possible to work any mood, even negative ones, deeper and more intense by singing the appropriate songs — but in a way it is. When the music comes up spontaneously, when the singing is for the song’s sake, I think there must inevitably be joy in it, the heart lifting with the breath, taking flight. I often find that the songs are a bellweather for my mental state; when they arise, I know that I’m on the right track. And I find that singing them lightens my spirit, dispersing sadness and oppression. No wonder then that the Gods love music so very much.
O Netjer, may You be pleased with my offering: the music of praise and the heart that leaps up in delight and love.
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October 13, 2009
Posted in Being Kemetic, Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:31 pm
by Shefyt
It was a good weekend — a friend and fellow Kemetic priest came to visit, and we went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and also simply spent time together talking about our practices. On Sunday, after the grocery shopping, I usually make offerings to my Beloveds, the God of the Year (currently Djehuty), and my Akhu; he sat in on that with me, and we added an offering for his Mothers, Nebt-het and Serqet. I’m used to doing offerings by myself, and it was an interesting and pleasant experience to be able to share that with someone. I think that there’s a lot we can learn, too, from watching and participating in each other’s rituals. Even if we’re working within the same basic framework, everyone brings their own touch, their own emphasis, their own poetry of gestures, words, and silences.
Another gray, cool day, a chill in the air that says autumn is here in earnest. It occurred to me just the other day that the colors of my state shrine — flame orange for the naos cabinet, shades of green and brown-gold for the curtained backdrop — echo the colors of this transition time, when the trees are just starting to catch fire. If you had asked me, once upon a time, what my least favorite color combination was, the answer would have been orange and green. It made me think of lurid fashion, of acidic day-glo and neon. And yet at Bast’s inspiration it’s become a thing of beauty for me. Now I see it with new eyes, a vision of fire and life and burning; now I associate it with the season that I love.
Tomorrow the House of Netjer will be holding an online oracle of Amun for its membership. I’ve been trying to think if I have anything to ask the God. Everything that’s unresolved for me right now is internal, not a question of “what should I do” or “what do I need to know” but of learning to be still with who I am and to see what’s truly around me. The secret of learning patience is to be patient.
O Amun, O Hidden One, may You help me to see what’s hidden from my view.
Dua Amun! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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June 30, 2009
Posted in Being Kemetic, Thoughts and Reflections
at 3:18 pm
by Shefyt
A lot of yard work this weekend, since the weather was cooperating. Actually, the weather has been quite cooperative in general over the last week or so: rain when I need to be indoors working on a freelance assignment, sun when it’s time to work outside. (And rain again when I’ve worked more than enough and just don’t want to admit it.) Almost four hours of leaf-raking, weed-pulling, and mowing on Sunday might have been a little much, but I’m starting to feel as though order is being restored to the place, bit by bit. And I still had time enough to visit the farmers’ market, and also to stop at one of the local farms and self-pick a pint of raspberries — offering the joy of harvesting abundance on such a beautiful day to Bast, and offering the berries themselves to Her later, in shrine.
Time enough — that’s abundance too. For years, I’ve struggled under the anguish of never having enough time to accomplish everything that I want to do. I don’t suddenly have more time than I used to — more like the opposite! And in fact I didn’t get to everything on my to-do list last weekend. But I did…enough. I filled the days well, with solid work interspersed with moments of calm and rest, and had no regrets at the end of it. What I didn’t get to, I’ll get to eventually, if it’s truly important. It’s a shift in perception brings relief, at last, from anxiety: satisfaction as the focus, and with that satisfaction comes peace.
Time spent in shrine is an offering. And the way we spend our time in general — not merely what we spend it on, but how we spend it — is an offering too, one that reverts to us, just as the reversion of food and drink offerings returns their benefit to the ones who offered them. The Kemetic word hotep means “offering” — and it also means “rest,” “satisfaction,” and “peace.” The more I ran around looking for peace, the less I found it. So let peace become my offering, and my offering becomes peace in its turn.
Em hotep, Bast, em hotep.
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